Semantics
by TJ Dragonblade
Summary: Tenpou and Kenren discuss terminology for male genitalia. M/M - KenTen.


A short bit of conversation that occurred to me while edit-reading an older KenTen piece I'm trying to finish. With thanks due to semi-recent-ish postings (on LJ) of Dice of Destiny and Salty Dog VII for reminding me how drop-dead sexy Tenpou is.  
_Drafted: 10/26/12_

"Why do you use _that_ word?" Kenren finally asked, when his post-coital high had settled into a warm glow beneath his skin, because Tenpou had gone and said it yet again - _more_ than _once_ - while they fucked and dammit, it just wasn't sexy.

"Mmh?" Tenpou regarded him with wide-eyed inquisitiveness, still somewhat tangled in the sheets where he sat up beside Kenren, newly-lit cigarette poised at his lips.

"Y'know - " Kenren gestured, willing himself to repeat the word " - penis." He shifted uncomfortably against the bed; he felt dirty saying it, which was patently ridiculous all things considered, but there it was.

Tenpou blinked down at him, bemused. "I'm quite certain that _is_ in fact the name for it," he said, wisps of smoke trailing out of his mouth with the words in a way that would have had Kenren getting respectably hard if he hadn't just spent himself in Tenpou's ass a moment ago.

"Well, sure, but nobody _calls_ it that," Kenren protested mildly. "It sounds...clinical. Impersonal. Anatomically correct." _Academic_, he wanted to say, except he didn't really think that was the most effective argument to sway Tenpou from its use.

Tenpou's head tilted, strands of dark hair spilling over his bare shoulder with the motion; he took another drag and exhaled it softly. "Does it matter all that much, in the end?" he asked. "A rose by any other name, and all that?"

"It's not _sexy_," Kenren insisted, stubborn in the face of Tenpou's unconcerned logic.

Tenpou laughed, a light little sound that was for once entirely genuine. "What would you have me call it, then?" He leaned forward, braced on one arm and looming over Kenren, amusement quirking his mouth. "Cock? Dick? Boner? Rod? Shaft?" His voice was pitched exactly where it always affected Kenren the worst, soft and warm and just this side of breathy, not nearly deep enough to be a purr. "Schlong? Pecker? Prick? Willy?" Another quick drag and he was breathing smoke gently into Kenren's face, sharing a vicarious taste of the nicotine hit. "Tallywhacker? Wedding tackle? Pee pee? Sausage, disco stick, trouser snake, queue, one-eyed - ?"

"Okay, okay already," Kenren interrupted, heat stirring in his belly despite himself. True, most of those weren't particularly sexy either, but something about _Tenpou_ reeling them off with such blasé ease, and in that _voice_ -

"Goujun usually managed to avoid naming it directly, but he'd call it his 'sex', sometimes," Tenpou mused, thoughtfully now. "Though I wonder if that's just his tendency toward decorum or more of a language thing, a quirk of translation, mmh?"

"Prudishness, if you ask me," Kenren offered, a touch sullenly, somewhat dampened by the reminder that Tenpou used to bed the dragon. It was no wonder their commander held little in the way of fondness now for Kenren. "Nothing wrong with cock, or dick."

Tenpou gave him a little twist of a smile behind the cigarette, not exactly an apology but acknowledgment that he'd touched a sore spot all the same. "Nothing at all," he agreed. He drew back, arranged himself to recline against the pillows (not coincidentally drawing attention to the fact that he was quite hard), sheets still caught haphazardly about one foot and cigarette held loosely aloft in his right hand. "Well, whatever you choose to call it, Kenren - " he shifted his hips, spread his legs in a way that was somehow more imperative than inviting and utterly irresistible all the same " - mine is still unsatisfied and would very much appreciate the devoted attentions of your mouth, now that you've had ample time to catch your breath."

"Yes, Sir," Kenren purred, and squirmed into position to accomodate, all question of semantics dismissed.


End file.
